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Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 i
1930
Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 ii
1930
EUROPE IN
THE SHADOW
OF THE BEAST
ARTHUR HABERMAN
Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 iv
Wilfrid Laurier University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for
the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Gov-
ernment of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities. This
work was supported by the Research Support Fund.
Front cover image: Georges Braque, The Blue Mandolin (1930). Cover design and interior
design by Angela Booth Malleau, designbooth.ca.
© 2018 Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
www.wlupress.wlu.ca
This book is printed on FSC® certified paper and is certified Ecologo. It contains post-
consumer fibre, is processed chlorine free, and is manufactured using biogas energy.
Printed in Canada
Every reasonable effort has been made to acquire permission for copyright material
used in this text, and to acknowledge all such indebtedness accurately. Any errors and
omissions called to the publisher’s attention will be corrected in future printings.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmit-
ted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or
a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an
Access Copyright licence, visit http://www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-
893-5777.
Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 v
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Acknowledgements 221
Notes 223
Bibliographical Notes 231
Additional Reading 239
Index 241
vii
Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 ii
INTRODUCTION
THE YEAR 1930 was hardly a happy one for Europe and the West. The effects
of the disaster of the Great War were still seen and felt. Economically, the
Wall Street crash in October 1929 began a time when the viability of liberal
capitalism was seriously questioned. In Italy there was a new authoritarian-
ism claiming to be the wave of the future. Communism was a hope, a fear,
and, mostly, an unknown.
A number of European writers and artists dealt with the time as a crisis
of culture and civilization. Some were friends, others were hardly known
to the rest. However, 1930 saw a coming together on the part of the major
intellectuals of Europe about European values and stability, and the future
of the continent. What makes 1930 such a watershed is that rarely have so
many important minds worked independently on issues so closely related.
All argued that something was seriously amiss and asked that people
become aware of the dilemma. Writers such as Thomas Mann, Virginia
Woolf, José Ortega y Gasset, Sigmund Freud, and Bertolt Brecht acted as
public intellectuals, asking hard questions about the survival of a Western
tradition that went at least as far back as the Enlightenment and sometimes
to the Renaissance and its classical revival.
The central issues were:
• The viability of a secular Europe with Enlightenment values
Most wondered whether the direction of modernity had taken a dark
turn with the event of the Great War and the rise of a strident and violent
ethnic nationalism. Could the best of European culture survive a turn
inward to destruction and fear?
• Coming to terms with a new, darker view of human nature
Now, in place of a view of human nature as either Cartesian (Cogito,
ergo sum), as one that claimed we are distinguished by our capacity
to reason, or as one that says we create with our labour (Homo faber),
1
Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 2
2 Introduction
Introduction 3
Prologue
EUROPEANS, 1930
5
Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 6
In 1928, they purchased a radio for their home and it has brought them
some information and pleasure. They listen to the news, and also now have
access to entertainment. They are especially fond of classical music and
search for favourite symphonies in the evening so that the family can enjoy
them together. On special occasions, they might attend a live musical perfor-
mance or the theatre. They are fascinated by the new development of cinema
and recently saw some films, perhaps Battleship Potemkin or Charlie Chaplin
in The Circus. They especially liked Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, which they saw
three years ago and still discuss.
Our family takes a one-week holiday at the seaside each year, staying in
a pension or a bed and breakfast that caters to others like themselves. There
is a public park near their home, and the family uses it in good weather for
picnics and Sunday outings.
They are very good citizens, decent, responsible, law-abiding, wonderful
neighbours. Their children have manners, are respectful of others, and try
hard in their public schools. The couple is ambitious for their children and
see education as the road to social mobility. She spends some of her time as
a volunteer in the local school.
If there was one word to describe how our couple felt about their lives
and the future, it would be uneasy. They are uneasy about much in their lives:
the economic future, the political stability of their country, the world their
children will inherit, the durability of peace.
European culture has changed profoundly since the time our couple
was born. Indeed, Europeans worried now about the viability of European
culture itself. Paul Valéry stated in 1919, “the swaying of the ship has been so
violent that the best-hung lamps have finally overturned.”1 The term doubt is
usually associated with theology and reflections about the nature and exis-
tence of god or the gods. Now doubt has penetrated the spirit of Europe itself.
It had been assumed during the fin de siècle era that Europe was at the
forefront of human development. Many behaved as if it would simply go on
forever. The Great War ended this illusion and introduced a deep cultural
malaise. In his 1922 essay “The European,” one often cited by his generation,
Valéry articulated the general mood:
We hope vaguely, we dread precisely; our fears are infinitely more pre-
cise than our hopes; we confess that the charm of life is behind us,
abundance is behind us, but doubt and disorder are in us and with us.
There is no thinking man, however shrewd or learned he may be, who
can hope to dominate this anxiety, to escape from this impression of
darkness, to measure the probable duration of this period when the
virtual relations of humanity are disturbed profoundly.
Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 7
Valéry noted that everything has been questioned and norms have been
overturned—the economy is fraught with danger, states wonder what poli-
cies to follow, individuals question the meaning of their lives. He concluded,
“The Mind itself has not been exempt from all this damage. The Mind is in fact
cruelly stricken; it grieves in men of intellect, and looks sadly upon itself. It
distrusts itself profoundly.”3
European readers were faced with a plethora of novels documenting the
horrors of the Great War and the senselessness of its violence and deaths.
Many artists produced images that vied with those of the hell of Bosch, but
were contemporary. Poets used terms like “The Wasteland” to evoke the
present mood.
The reminder of a Europe wounded was everywhere. In France and
Belgium especially, there were the ruins of war. However, there were also the
returning soldiers, many of whom were wounded, some permanently dis-
abled, and others with lost limbs. A common sight on the streets of Europe
was young men using canes and crutches. The metaphor of sickness and a
need to be healed was part of everyday life.
This unease was also reflected in the puzzlement about the war’s reso-
lution. Winning a war is useless if it is not followed by a durable peace. Our
couple and their friends, with whom they sometimes discussed politics, did
not know what to make of the international relations that arose out of the
Versailles treaty.
For them, the settlement did not seem to hold. It violated several of
the principles of balance of power politics in an era of national sovereignty.
First, the treaty was made without the presence or consent of both Russia,
engaged in its revolution after having left the war in March 1918, and Ger-
many, defeated. It is axiomatic that a comprehensive treaty cannot create a
peace that will last unless the major powers involved in the conflict agree to
its provisions and are willing to act to uphold it. Of the five major powers,
only three deliberated and wrote the documents: the United States, Britain,
and France.
Moreover, by 1930 it was clear that the United States was following a
policy of withdrawal from European affairs, regularly called isolationism.
Though the idea of a strong League of Nations was put forth during the Great
War and at the Paris peace negotiations by its president, Woodrow Wilson,
the US Senate refused to endorse it in 1920; the country cooperated with
Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 8
the League on occasion but never belonged to it. Wilsonianism was never
put into practice in the decade of the 1920s.
The treaty had economic consequences, predicted by the English econ-
omist John Maynard Keynes, that would unsettle both the European econ-
omy and relations among the major states. Germany was declared guilty of
fomenting the Great War and was required—forced, really—to pay repara-
tions, mainly to France, which had endured great destruction.
France was obsessed with Germany and its place in European affairs.
This was the result of events following the German victory over the French
in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, the creation of a united Germany,
and the new status of Germany as the most important of the powers on the
European continent. The insistence in France and elsewhere that Germany
and Austria alone were responsible for the outbreak of the Great War added
to this concern. France believed that a weak Germany was necessary for the
stability of Europe.
Germany had difficulty raising enough funds to deal with the costs of
reparations and requested a two-year moratorium in 1922, something the
French vetoed. When no payments were forthcoming, the French took it
upon themselves to send troops to occupy the German industrial area of
the Ruhr. Eventually, an arrangement was made, but it was clear that the
Versailles Treaty was tottering.
The economic side of the reparations issue resulted in severe inflation
in Germany and the further alienation of the middle class from the treaty.
In order to deal with occupation and reparations, the German government
printed money. The mark, worth 62 marks to the US dollar in May 1921,
dropped to 100,000 to the dollar in June 1923, and lower still to 4.2 trillion
to the dollar in November 1923. Most German citizens had their savings
wiped out.
All of this resulted in a quest for some measure of stability. Many agree-
ments between countries were proposed. Two, designed to strengthen the
powers of the League of Nations in international disputes—a 1923 Treaty of
Mutual Assistance, and a 1924 proposal called the Geneva Protocol, which
required compulsory arbitration in the event of international disputes—
failed because, among others, Britain refused to sign. Now it seemed the
United States had withdrawn, and Britain was behaving as “little Englanders.”
France was distraught. It seemed to be the only one of the five powers com-
mitted to the treaty.
There soon came to be some positive signs. A Treaty of Locarno was
made in December 1925 that dealt with the borders between Germany, Bel-
gium, and France, signed as well by Britain and Italy. Germany joined the
Haberman: 1930 08/14/18 20
Lands. Goods.
Lady Francis Weld and Mr. Humphrey Weld 2 10 0 2 0 0
Sir John Wray. 1 0 0 1 0 0
472. “John Corrance ... sheweth that ... Humphry Weld, of Weld Street, esq., ...
built these several messuages, viz. ... and two other messuages scituate in Weld
Street, with two coach houses, stables and hay lofts over, being at the further end
of a garden in his, Humphry’s, possession, and by indenture of 17th May, 1665,
demised them to John, Lord St. John, of Basing, Earle of Wilts and Marquis of
Winchester, for twenty yeares, at a rent of £160; and also one other house in Weld
Street, which messuage with the use of a house of office at the end of a garden of
Weld’s called the Back garden, and the use of a pumpe in a stable yard thereto
adjoyning in common with his other tenants by indenture of July 31st, 1671, Weld
demised to Thomas Hawker, of St. Giles, gentleman, for 11¼ years at a rent of
£30.” (Chancery Proceedings, Bridges, 465–184).
473. See previous note.
474. Worsley’s residence was the last house but one in Great Queen Street,
and the premises held by him in Wild Street obviously backed on to his residence.
475. Hospital and Parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, p. 248.
476. It is impossible to make the entries in the Hearth Tax Rolls agree with all
the particulars of occupations given by Parton, and copies of the deeds from which
he quotes have not come to light in the course of the investigations for this volume.
477. “Finding them, however, to be too numerous, they ventured to apprehend
only some few that stood outmost, and hurrying them away as fast as they could,
by the time they were well within my gates, the rest made after them, attempted to
break open my doors, fell upon the watchmen, broke their halberts, flung brickbats
and stones up against my house, cried out: ‘This is the grand justice that hangs and
quarters us all, and caused Jones and Wright to be executed the last sessions,’
divided themselves into two parties, sent one to beset the back lane behind my
garden, having information given them that I sent prisoners out that way to avoid a